Groove Town Records
by beb
Summary: There's a new ghost in town and they have it in for the Groove Town Record Company. To stop their rampage Danny's going to have to find out who they are, and what's their beef. All before they can complete their revenge with the company's retired CEO.
1. Chapter 1

Dinner was always an adventure in the Fenton household. The challenge being to find a dish with somewhat less ham in it. Danny was carefully separating the ham from his his potatoes when a gust of cold air seemed to blow through the kitchen turning Danny's breath into a faint mist. His Ghost Sense.

Danny quickly looked around to see if anyone had noticed. His father was frozen in his seat, a forkfull of ham suspended between plate and mouth. Almost nothing stopped him from enjoying his supper but he was staring at the TV not at Danny. His mother, too was staring at the TV. His sister knew about the Ghost Sense so it didn't matter if she saw it. Danny turned to look at the TV.

A reporter was standing in front of an old brick building whose front wall had collapsed. Apparently it had housed an old recording company, which Danny found interesting only because he didn't recall Amity Park having an active music scene. Fire Fighters on the scene attributed the explosion to a gas leak.

"That brings back memories," Danny's father said with a sigh once the news report was over. 'Groove Town Records' You don't hear much about them these days but in their time they were one jumping record company."

"When was that?" Jazz, asked. Danny waited for her to add, "During the Jurassic?" but his sister was largely lacking a sarcastic bone in her body.

"Back in the 80's mostly. They got their start in the mid-70s with Disco Fever but branched out into heavy metal and punk rock. They had quite a stable of hit-makers - - The Hallelujah Sisters, Queen Obediah, Temptress, Gloria Penia..."

"Sounds like a lot of chick bands. Did they ever have guy groups?" Danny asked.

Jack Fenton thought for a moment. "Maddie?" he asked when he came up blank.

"Groove Town Records was famous for being a female friendly recording studio," she said. "All the other labels were mostly after guys with long hair. Groove Town signed woman with longer hair."

"Like Patty and the Powercats," Danny's father said with an unlikely dreamy quality in his voice. "Oh, they were so adorable with their little cat ears and tails..."

"Jack, dear, Patty and the Powercats were an early punk band. They wore black jeans and army boots. You're thinking on that cartoon band on TV." Danny was surprised by the terse tone his mother used. He glanced towards his sister to see if she had noticed but she was keeping her eyes studiously on her plate.

"Oh, right. I like the ones on TV better. They were so sex- Well, anyway... Tattoos! They were first to sport a lot of tattoos. Especially Patty. Patty Melt, I think her name was..."

"That was just her stage name," Maddie corrected crisply. "Her real name was something like Sybil O'Shea."

"Patty, Sybil, whatever her name was, I remember her now. Man, she was hot. I had posters of her in my bedroom. Right next to my Farrah Fawcet and Rachel Welch posters.

"Of course," Danny mother said disapprovingly.

"Oh, come one, Maddie, I was Danny's age at the time. All boys like to have posters of sexy woman on their walls. That was long before I met you. You know I've never looked at another woman since."

She smiled forgivingly, "that's true."

"So what happened to Patty and the Powercats?" Danny asked.

"It's the same old story," her father replied. "Patty, the lead singer, got too full of herself. Angered all the other band members, so they split. Groove Town Records was never the same afterwards."

"You forgot all the fraud, embezzlement, lying, cheating, general malfeasance Patty uncovered when she demanded an audit after the band broke up," Maddie corrected. "It was quite a scandal at the time. The owner, Colonel Greenbriar went to prison for twenty years, I believe. That's what killed the label."

"Greenbriar..." Jack mused. "He wasn't a real colonel. Not even a Kentucky Colonel. He just called himself that because he admired the guy who found Elvis Presley."

"And Patty Melt?" Jazz asked. "Did she ever get all her money?"

"It was a sad case," Jack said. "She never got her money, spent all she had on lawsuits. Also, I think she had a drug habit. They all did back then. In any case, one day she jumped from Amity Park's tallest building. They said she played one of her signature guitar riffs all the way down. She went out the way she started, I guess."

"Gross." Jazz said and Danny had to agree with her. A suicide and a ghost sense alert; that couldn't be good. He would have to investigate.

"May I be excused?" he asked. "I promised Tucker I'd be over to check out the new video game he got."

His mother looked to his father to see if he had any objections. "Well, OK," she said, "but only after you and Jazz clear up after supper. And remember: it's a school night so curfew is 9 pm."

"Aw, Mom. It's after 6 already. I won't get to Tucker's before I have to come home."

Maddie frowned. She hated contradicting herself when it came to family discipline. "Do you have any tests tomorrow? Any reports that are coming up?"

"No."

"Then I guess we can give you till 9:30."

"Thanks, Mom."

Danny sat back down and fidgeted a few minutes until his father pushed back his chair with a sigh and announced that he couldn't eat another bite. Considering how much he's already put away Danny always wondered how he knew when to quit. But it meant supper was over and Danny and Jazz both hopped up to begin clearing the table.

"We'll be in the lab," their mother announced as their parents went out of dinning room door.

Danny and Jazz worked silently for a moment, then Jazz asked, "Going to investigate? I saw your breath."

"Do you think mom and dad noticed?" Danny asked, always worried that his parents might find out that he was part-ghost.

"Nah, they were focused on the TV."

"Good. Say, Jazz, I'll owe you a big favor if you let me go now. Would you?"

"Danny, if I had a dollar for every time you said that...my college fund would be paid up."

"I thought you were in line to get a full ride on scholarships?"

"I am, but you know what I mean. You promise to do something for me but you never do. So, sorry, you're helping with the dishes!"

Danny sighed, then started clearing the dining table while Jazz filled the sink with hot water. They worked in silence for a bit then because Danny couldn't take the silence, asked, "How are things going with your ghost therapy group?"

"You mean People for the Ethical Treatment of Ectoplasmic Manifestations? Going well, I guess. I had a break-through last week with one of our newer members. A little fellow named Oscar who had spent the last ten years haunting his wife. He blamed her for making his life so miserable but I was able to show him that he was partially responsible because he never spoke up and complained about her behavior. Classic case of Passive-Aggression. It was so sweet. You could see the realization spreading across his face then, Poof! He was gone. Hopefully to a better place. In any case, he hasn't been back since."

"Good for him. One less ghost I have to chase. What about the others? Still butting heads with Ember? Have you gotten Lord Faultless Roy to stop saying out loud what he thinks of people's clothes?" He was scraping off the plates and putting them in the dish washer. When he was done he handed the last plate to Jazz, who washed the accumulated food into the garbage disposal then handed the plate back to Danny. He put it in the dish washer, added soap and turned it on. Jazz was washing the pots and pans. He grabbed a dish cloth and started drying as they came out of the suds.

"No," Jazz was saying. "And, Ember hasn't been around lately. We were talking about her need to have more power when she had so much power already. She got a bit snippety and hasn't come back."

"Snippety?"

"You know, when someone..."

"I know what snippety means. I just never thought of it applying to her. Rude, vulgar, scarcastic sure; but 'snippety?' no."

[I]

Danny called Sam and Tucker before leaving and they met downtown a block away from the destroyed building. They all were riding small white scooters. Danny already had his chained to a lamp-post.

Anyone growing up in a city knows that it is made up of many parts. There are bright, shiny new parts, older communities, bad communities and places where time and man have forgotten. The Groove Town Records building was in one of the latter locations. To the south was the cross-town expressway, to the east was Main Street, eight lane wide, dividing Amity Park into East and West sides. To the north stretched further blocks of aged, abandoned buildings. To the west stretched open fields where the buildings had been scrapped away in hopes of an Urban Renewal that never came. It was a depressing part of the city. The blown up building was a modest size structure four stories tall, old brick and covered to some extent by graffiti. The lack of extensive tagging suggested that even the taggers found this place too sad for their work. The street department have place barricades at either end of the block, in case the rest of the building decided to tumble into ruin, as if there was any traffic on that street that needed protection. Police tape had been strung from fire hydrant to lamp post to scrub tree growing through the sidewalk to the other end of the building but an actual guard over the disaster scene just scant hours after the explosion happened had been considered unnecessary.

Danny, Sam and Tucker walked across the street towards the building, ducked under the police tape and stopped on the sidewalk outside the building and studied the half open building. The street side face of the building lay at the foot of the building a pile of rubble. The interior of the four floors was open to the air and the three could see that the exposed rooms were filled with desks, chairs, filing cabinets almost as if the building was still in use.

"Didn't you say this place blew up?" Tucker asked.

"That's what the TV said," Danny told him.

"Weird. 'Cause you know an explosion is a force moving out so you'd expect a lot of these bricks to be scattered across the street, but they're just here in a pile."

"Maybe the street department swept up the street already," Danny suggested.

"That doesn't explain the bricks that are in the street," Sam snorted. "Tuck's right, there's more bricks inside the building that outside. It doesn't look like an explosion to me."

"And where's the scorching if this had been a gas-leak explosion," Tucker went on. "If you ask me, someone on tha outside was trying to blow this building down."

"That would explain my ghost sense going off when I heard the news, I guess. This wasn't an explosion, this was some ghost trying to cave in the building." Danny said.

"Why would a ghost just randomly try to demolish a building?" Sam, ever the practical one, wondered. "Do you think it's safe to go inside?"

Tucker snorted. "Hardly."

"They made buildings a lot stronger back then then they do today," Danny said. "But I have an idea. Take a hold of my hands and at the first sign of trouble I'll go intangible and fly us out of there. We'll be safe that way."

There was a flash of light and Danny Fenton had become Danny Phantom. Sam and Tucker took his outstretched hands and they glided into the ground floor of the building. Though the light was fading there was still plenty to see everything in the room. The front half of the ground floor was a large lobby filled with small clusters of tubular metal-framed chairs and couches surrounding small, low tables. Numerous magazines were scattered on the tables. Half way back was a large receptionist's desk, sweeping across the room like the bridge of the Enterprise. Broad, sweeping stairs were behind the receptionist leading up to the next floor. And an elevator bank were behind that. From the street they had seen that a loading dock and small warehouse had filled out the rest of the ground floor.

"What the?" Tucker said, letting go of Danny's hand and picking up a tabloid newspaper from one of the tables. "Rolling Stone?" He help up the newspaper so the others could see the masthead. "Since when was Rolling Stone a newspaper?" he wondered. Danny shrugged his shoulders then looked to see where Sam had got off to. Danny was feeling a bit exasperated that his plan to keep his friends safe was being ignored so quickly.

"Look at this!" Sam called from behind the receptionist's desk. Danny drifted over. Sam pointed to the clutter of paperclips, a stapler, coffee mug filled with ballpoint pens and scratch and memo pads. "It's like they just walked out the door one day and never came back," she said.

"Dad said something about the business being closed down because of some kind of embezzlement scandal. Maybe that's just what happened. One night the police arrested the founder, that Greenbriar guy, and there was nobody to open the store in the morning."

"Or no one wanted to come back," Sam suggested.

"Hey, look at this," Tucker said as he walked over to join Sam and Danny. He held up another ancient music industry magazine. It's Shirley Lamont, back when she was young...and skinny. Wow, she was quite a looker.

"Queen Obediah" Danny read the headline.

"Maybe back then but she records as Shirley Lamont today. My dad has all her records. She's good - if you like torch songs."

"Let's go up," Sam suggested and Danny took their hands and flew through the ceiling into the next floor.

This floor was a warren of small offices. There was a small reception area in front of the elevator bank with a hall leading off from one side of the building towards the front and looping around back to the elevator on the other side. Here, too, it looked liked people had just swept up their personal possessions and left everything else in place. Danny wondered if, when the police had come from Colonel Greenbrier the others had realized that the jig was up and had just melted away before they could be caught up in whatever trouble the Colonel had gotten into.

They went up another floor.

This was series of recording studies and practice rooms. The recording studios had large glass windows from the hallway looking into the control room which in turn had large windows looking into the recording chamber. The walls of the recording rooms looked like they were actually lined with old cardboard egg crates. Tucker let go of Danny's hand and pushed through the closed and rusty door to touch the wall. The egg crate, or whatever it was, disintegrated under his touch. Tuker came back out shaking his head. He paused to look at the sound board in the control room, moving slides and turning switches. He was shaking his head when he got back to Danny and Sam.

"I can't believe they just walked off and left all that equipment in place," he said. "There must be tens of thousands of dollar worth of gear there. Even if the company had gone into bankrupt I would'a thought they'd sell off the recording equipment to pay some of the costs. What a waste."

The fourth and final floor was a bit different from the other floors. Where they all had the drab look of a moderately successful business the fourth floor had a glitzy, albeit dust covered elegance. Fashionable 70s era furniture was scattered around a large reception area. A wet bar was built into one corner. Large windows looked out on the north side of the room. The south side was paneled with several doors leading into rooms. Sam popped one door open then sprang back with a gasp.

"What's up?" Danny asked, gliding around to hover next to her. He looked through the still open door. The floor ended a couple feet beyond. The rest of the room was piled up on the ground far, far below. "Looks like a conference room," Danny told her. He took her hand and flew her back to the middle of the room. "We'd better stay away from that side of the building," Danny told Tucker. "The floor ends kind of abruptly. No telling how stable it is."

"What are those things on the wall?" Tucker asked, walking up to where Danny had just told him not to go. "Golden Record awards! And people just left them here?"

Sam joined him while Danny rolled his eyes. "Fakes," She observed. "That's not real wood," she said tapping the imitation wood plastic molding, "and I bet the record is plastic, too."

"Guys..." Danny called, trying to wave them away from the structurally unsafe part of the room.

"Wow," Tucker was saying. "Who are these people? Queen Obedieh...oh, That's Shirley Lamont. I forgot all about her disco days. She's a much better Gospel singer. Temptress? I wonder who that was. She has quite a string of Gold Records apparently."

"One's missing," Sam said. Tucker and Danny both turned to look at the empty spot on the way. It was mid-way between two conference doors which suggested that it had been only the latest Golden Record to be won, before the company's collapse. There was a light colored square on the wall indicating that something had been there for a long time. And removed only recently.

"You think who ever blew up this building came back and took this plaque first?" Tucker wondered.

"I think that's a forgone conclusion," Sam said. "If only we knew who it was?"

"Shouldn't be too hard to find out. Just Google for Groove Town Records and Gold Records and see which was the last one given." Danny said.

"I'm not getting a signal here," Tucker said sadly, looking at his smartphone. "Too much iron in the building,"

"We'll figure it out later," Danny said. "Want to see what in the room at the front of the buiding? I'm guessing that it's Colonel Greenbriar's office.

They were crossing the large, open room when a glowing form materialized in front of them. It resolved into a chubby ghost wearing bib overalls, a checked shirt and a beret. "Take Care!" It said in loud, hollow tones. "I am the Ball Ghost, defender of all things round and bouncy. Heed My warning..."

"Hi, Rollo," Danny called up to the ghost.

"Oh, hi, Danny," the ghost returned in a chipper voice quite unlike that he had used a moment before.

"What are you doing here?" Danny asked.

"Let me finish, OK?" The ghost's face wrinkled up in concentration. "Take Care," he muttered, counting it off on his fingers. "Ball Ghost," another finger was counted.

"Can we just take it as give then you're made you speech?" Danny asked.

Rollo seemed to puff up indignantly. "Unlike you halfs, we real ghosts are creatures of form and patterns. We must complete our rituals!"

"Rollo, what are you doing here?" Danny asked. There was a little crispness in his voice.

"You know him?" Tucker interrupted.

"Yeah, he goes to my sister's ghost therapy class."

"Your sister is doing therapy on ghosts?" Sam echoed.

"It's her new project, People for the Ethical Treatment of Ectoplasmic Manifestations."

"Pet'em?" Sam looked at him dubiously.

"Yeah. You didn't know about it? I thought for sure she'd hit you up to join?" Danny told her.

"Not a word. So how many people does she have signed up for this encounter group?"

"None actually, it's all ghosts."

"Danny," Tucker had been impatiently waiting for a break. "Doesn't this guy look kind of familiar?"

"Don't say anything," Danny warned.

"Huh? I mean he looks just like the Box Ghost..."

"I am not the Box Ghost! I am not his brother, cousin, uncle or nephew!" Rollo shouted. "I am a wholly original and unique ghost! I protect those things which are the most perfect in form, the round and bouncing things. I am the Ball Ghost! I am no ones imitation!"

"He's a little cranky about that point." Danny explained.

Sam was rubbing her ears. "...and a little loud," she griped. "But what is he protecting around here. Rather a lack of balls or anything else."

"I protect those!" Rollo shouted, pointing with pudgy ectoplasmic fingers towards the wall of Golden Records.

"They are round," Tucker agreed. "if nothing else."

"Rollo, Rollo," Danny broke in, "what are you doing here?"

"I'm haunting this..." the chubby ghost abruptly stopped talking, placing his hands over his mouth as if wishing to call back his words."

"You're haunting. What did I tell the group the other week about haunting...?"

Rollo looked guiltily away but eventually brought his hang-dog head back to face Danny. "You said we couldn't haunt any place and more."

"Right. I said you ghosts were free to come and go to this plane as long as you don't do any haunting."

"She said it would be OK?"

"Who said it would be OK?"

If it were possible for a ghost to look terrified, Rollo, the roly-poly Ball ghost, did. "I didn't say anything."

"Who is 'she'?' Danny insister. "Who said you could haunt this building?"

Rollo suddenly threw a ball of ectoplam at Danny and streaked into the sky. Danny warded off the ball with a quickly erected wall of ectoplasm, then rocketed off into the sky after the rapidly diappearing Ball Ghost.

"Danny?" Tucker asked the vacant air. "Now what?" he asked Sam.

"I suggest we wait for Danny over here," she waved towards the side of the building away from the open front of the street, "and try not to shake the building too much..."


	2. Chapter 2

The three friends weren't able to get together before lunch the next day. Sam slide into her seat later than the two boys since she had to wait for the cook to bring her a prepared vegetarian meal from out of the kitchen. As she speared some cooked carrots Danny asked, "Did you get home alright?"

"No, I was raped and murdered on the way home. Of course I got home alright. I'm here now, aren't I? No thanks to a certain person I might mention." She jabbed at the carrot so hard that it flipped out from under her fork and landed on the floor. "Shoot!" she snarled. "Look what you made me do? And what was the idea of leaving Tuck and me trapped on the top floor of a building on the verge of collapsing?"

"Sorry. Rollo was slippier than I expected. And after I did catch him, he wouldn't talk. By the time I got back you'd already left."

After a bit of the meatloaf on his plate Danny asked, "How did you guys get down last night?"

"Stairs," Tuck answered. "When we got bored waiting for your return we decided that the stairs was probably better reinforced that the rest of the building so we went down it."

"I really am sorry I was so late getting back. I didn't realize how long it had taken for me to capture and try to get him to talk," Danny said.

"Did you find out anything about that last Gold Record at Groove Town?" Sam asked.

Danny shook his head. "When I got back I had to do all my homework. Didn't have time afterwards."

She looked across the table. "Tuck?"

"I had to debug my mom's computer. She'd caught a pretty nasty virus."

"What would you boys do without me?" Sam announced and spread several pages of print-outs on the table between them.

"I'm sure you'd tell us," Tucker muttered louder than intended to Danny. Sam gave him a scowl.

"I do my homework first thing after I get home from school so I had plenty of time later to dig into the short, sad life of Groove Town Records." She took a bite of some slimy green stuff that smelled nauseously of spinach. "The last Gold Record awarded to the company was for Patty and the Powercats' single "Heart Stomp." It was given in March of 1982. Ironically the band had broke up the week before." She paused to crunch a baby carrot before continuing. "Reports of the break-up say that the Powercats' - that is Katy with a "y" Eben, Kati with an "i" Schmitts and Karol Osgood, voted to kick Patty Melt, their lead singer, out. They were concerned about her chronic drunkenness, drugs use and erratic behavior. Rehab was still a thing of the future, apparently."

Watching her fork in another mouthful of that green slime was killing Danny's appetite. He looked down at the meatloaf that everyone else was served and felt his stomach heave. He wanted to say something about what Sam had found out about the record company but was afraid if he opened his mouth his stomach might try to exit.

"The album was on a pace to sell a million copies - if the company hadn't gone out of business. After the initial pressing had sold out the album went into limbo. The Powercats toured for a while with a replacement singer/guitarist but without Patty they never had quite the excitement that they had in the past. The Powercats disbanded in 1985 and resisted any attempt at a reunion during the old band craze in the 90s."

"What about Patty?" Danny asked.

"Ah, yes. Patty Melt. That was her stage name. Patty and the Powercats were an early punk band so she was known to throw meat into the audience at early concerts. I was able to find that she had toured before that as an Irish folksinger named Sybil O'Shea. The review's I found were mixed. She seemed to have a good voice and sang with feeling but as the night would wear on she tended to become more belligerant and would sing louder and break into flailing guitar solos that had nothing to do with the song she was singing. Also she was once arrested for assaulting a concert-goer who'd criticized her singing."

"Sounds like a train wreck," Tuck observed. He'd cleaned his plate despite the unappealing mess on Sam's plate and was trying to steal chips out of Danny's bag of potato chips.

"You don't know the half of it," Sam concurred. In the week that followed her being fired by her bandmates Patty Melt was arrest three different times for 'drunk and disorderly,' 'assaulting a police officer,' and for 'public indecency.' By the way she was charged those three things on each arrest. Following the last arrest the Judge refused to allow bail unless she promised to go into a counseling program. She lasted a week at Betty Ford then went AWOL." Sam turned over one of the pages she was reading from and glanced at the notes on it. "Surprisingly she stayed out of the news for a full month then, before filing a lawsuit against Groove Town Records and Colonel Greenbriar. Seems she had been promised a cut of the merchandising for Patty and the Powercats. They had sold a ton of posters and she'd never seen a cent of that money."

"My dad had one of her posters when he was my age." Danny said.

"I can't imagine your dad being young, or into hip music bands," Tucker added.

"Focus, boys, focus," Sam snapped.

"Hey! I'm just saying she must have sold a lot of posters because my dad had one."

"Was she hot?" Tucker asked.

Danny shrugged.

"If you had done your homework on time you could have googled an imagine of the poster." Sam reminded him.

"Was she hot?" Tucker persisted.

Sam couldn't stop from rolling her eyes. "You put a girl in tight pants and a low-cut T-shirt and of course she'll look hot." She snapped. "She's dead, what does it matter!"

"Dead?" Tucker exclaimed.

"Yes! dead! Let me finish... " She glared at Tucker for a moment before clearing her throat and continuing. "Lawsuits being what they are, the audit she demanded didn't begin until 1983 and lasted into 1984. It found that not only had Colonel Greenbriar withheld all merchandising revenues; he had been under-reporting record sales, over-estimating overhead expenses, failing to pay suppliers and pocketing all the money which had gone to fund his lavish life-style. The long and short of it was that he owed millions to practically everyone associated with the label but there was no money in the coffers to pay anyone back. What money was left had been invested in his house, a mansion, that couldn't be touched because state law shields private residences from personal liens. There was also a trust fund in the name of his housekeeper to the tune of a couple million dollars but that couldn't be touched either because it was legally no longer his money." Sam sighed and spend a moment eating.

"So what happened to Patty and the others?" Danny prompted after a moment.

"When it became obvious that there would never be any money coming to her Patty Melt, aka Sybil O'Shea, aka, something else - nobody really knew what her real name was - jumped to her death from the tallest building in Amity Park, which back then was the Prentice Building. Rumors have it that she played one of her signature guitar riffs all the way down."

"That's ridiculous!" Tucker said. "First of all, she's falling at 32 feet per second per second. She'd hit the ground before anyone knew what she was playing. Secondly, if she was playing an acoustic guitar no one would have held her as she fell, and if she were playing an electric guitar she's need a twenty story patch cord to the amplifier."

"Killjoy." Danny stopped his friends rant.

"Here's the part you'll like," Sam said. "Patty Melt killed herself on the 10th of this month exactly thirty years ago."

"Whoa! A Ghost with unfinished business and a anniversary! That can't be good." Danny said.

"You sure it's not just Ember McLain having a snit?" Tucker asked.

"Snit? Whoever it was that took out half a building. That is not a snit," Danny said. "But why blame Ember, this is nothing like her usual M. O."

"She's a female ghost, and I recall hearing that Rollo character saying it was some 'she' who told him to haunt the old record company. She's a rock and roll ghost, and this is a music business haunting. Who else could it be?" Tucker argued.

"Just because Ember is a female, rocker ghost doesn't mean that there aren't other ghosts of women rockers," Danny explained. "And this is nothing like what Ember usually does. The first time we met her was on that "Remember My Name" tour when she was trying to hypnotize people into saying her name. The next time she was teamed up with Youngblood, hypnotizing people to run on treadmills to power up their machines to take over the world. And another time she teamed up with some other girl ghosts to banish all males to another dimension."

"I don't remember that," Tucker interrupted.

"That's because you were banished. The only people who remember are those who were left behind, like me, Jazz and Mrs. Fenton," Sam explained.

"You're not making this up, are you?" Tucker asked. "Who would want a world without men?"

"Who indeed?" Sam echoed sarcastically.

"Whatever," Danny dismissed Sam's comments. "The thing is Ember may be a rocker but she mostly goes around trying to hypnotize people with her music to get them to do the things she wants. Blowing up buildings is not like her. That's why I think it has to be someone else. A ghost we haven't run into before, the ghost of Patty Melt."

"I still say it's Ember," Tucker persisted.

"She did stop coming to my sister's PETEM meetings," Danny said, "But then, I was surprised that she ever came at all, so I'm not surprised that she decided to stop coming."

"I can't believe your sister is doing group therapy with some of your worst enemies," Tucker said. "I'm surprised you're letting her get away with it."

"They're not my worst enemies," Danny explained. "They're like The Box Ghost and Clemper, Lunch Lady Doris and so on. Ember McClain is probably the most powerful ghost among them but as long as she's on her good behavior I figure going to these meetings can't hurt. But I made it very clear to all of them that there's to be no haunting, no harassing people while they're here. If Ember's breaking that rule then I'm going to kick her butt and send her back to the Ghost Zone."

"But you don't really know that it was Ember who tried to destroy the Groove Town Records Building," Sam reminded him.

"Exactly, and until I have real evidence that she's involved I'm going with the assumption that this is the work of a new ghost."

The ringing of the class bell interrupted his thoughts. Sam scooped up her papers and stuffed them back in her binder, shoved a last fork full off green slime into her mouth and took off. Tucker grabbed the still; half-filled bag of chips off Danny's tray and left as well. Danny watched them leave while he thought but he couldn't decide what to do.


	3. Chapter 3

That afternoon Danny came straight home from school, went upstairs and dropped his backpack on his bed. He fished out a couple of school books and artfully arranged them on his desk. Then turning on the radio and setting the volume a little high he walked over to the door, listened closely for noise in the hallway before turning the lock on it. He plopped down on the chair at his desk, pulled up the bottom drawer and took out a Fenton Thermos. His parents didn't know he had a supply of them hidden in his room and he didn't intend for them to find out. Just one of the complications of having a secret life as a ghost.

He set the thermos down on the desk, leaving the draw open in case he had to hide it in a hurry. A tap stirred a voice from within the Thermos. "Take Heed! For I am the Ball Ghost, defender of all things round and bouncy..." the voice broke off then continued in a soft, whiney tone, "let me out of here, Danny. Please? I'll be good."

"I'm sorry, Rollo. I know you keep your promises but it would set a bad precedent if I let you out after catching you red-handed haunting a building when you weren't supposed to. All the other ghosts will be claiming the right to be let out if I catch them doing something wrong." Danny had rehearsed this speech all afternoon at school. He spoke softly so the loud radio would drown out his voice. "But..." he dangled, "I could let you out with a warning if you'd help me with something."

"Oh, please," Rollo, the Ball Ghost said. "I'll do anything to get out of here. it's so small and... unround."

"Tell me who told you you could haunt the Groove Town Record Building."

There was a long pause. If ghosts had lips Danny could imagine Rollo licking suddenly dry lips, maybe tugging at his ectoplasmic shirt collar. "I can't tell you that?"

"Sure you can." Danny reminded him. "It was the ghost of Patty Melt, wasn't it?"

There was a long pause because the ball ghost answered and even then he spoke in a low whisper that Danny could barely hear over the loud radio. "How did you know?"

"Isn't it obvious? Now tell me where I can find her?"

"But if I tell you and you show up there she'll know I told and then she'll hurt me."

"I'll -"

"You can't protect me all the time when I'm in the Ghost Zone."

Danny had to concede the point. He thought for a moment. Finally he addressed the thermos once again. "Rollo, you know I'm going to find her eventually. Patty's not done with Groove Town Records so sooner or later she's going to do something and I'll be on her trail. Now I could put her in there with you or - I could let you out before I put her in there. Which would you prefer: sharing a thermos with Patty or being on the outside while she's on the inside?"

There was a a variety of grunts, growls and snarls from the thermos. It rocked a little bit as Rollo flung himself from side to side. "You're _mean_, Danny Phantom. You are so _mean_. I'm never going to talk to you again!"

All told, Danny considered that a mixed blessing.

"Where's she at?"

"There's a storage room on the third floor of the Hard Rock Museum and Cafe."

Danny slapped his forehead. How could he have not thought of that. Where else would a rock and roll themed ghost go but to a rock and roll themed restaurant.

Rollo must have head Danny slap himself because he anxiously called, "Danny? Danny? Are you alight? Speak to me? Tell me you're all right and will let me out of here!"

Before the ghost could get any more hysterical Danny hit the release button on the Thermos. The lid popped open and Rollo slowly drifted out of the container. He looked anxiously at Danny for a moment then a cold, stern frown settled on his face. "I'm not talking to you," he reminded Danny.

"Thanks, anyway," Danny said, knowing that Rollo couldn't hold a grudge long. He turned ghost and slung the now empty Fenton Thermos over his shoulder and digging in the drawer where the thermos had been, added a couple other items. Reaching in again he took out a set of Fenton Phones which he hung over his ears and adjusted for the speakers to fit into his ears. His parents had designed them for communications in the Ghost Zone, but since they believed that their Ghost Portal did not work had never gone through to try the 'phones out. Not only did the Fenton Phone work it had the added feature of filtering out ghost sounds, which in practical terms meant that they blocked any hypnotic messages from Ember's playing. Danny remembered all too well how she had made him fall in love with Sam, nearly causing their deaths in the process. He didn't want her hypnotizing him again.

He turned off the radio and unlocked the door. "I gotta run. So see you later." He paused for a second, not sure how to tell Rollo to get out of his bedroom. "Don't let my father find you here," he finally decided. "You know he's the crazy one in the family."

There was a faint "whoosh" as Rollo hurled past him.

[I]

The Hard Rock Cafe was located in mid-town Amity Park, in a renovated warehouse. The old building had been covered in glossy tile, a giant guitar was outlined in neon lights along the front of the building. His parents had taken there once when one of their favorite old bands had come to play and sign autographs. The meal was OK but seeing his parents dressed like nerds in twenty year old clothes had been embarrassing. The store-room on the third floor that Rollo had mentioned was easy to find. Aside from a suite of offices at one end of the building, the rest of the third floor was all storage.

The sun was shining through a row of windows on the street side of the building so he didn't need the flashlight that he had brought along. The room seemed to be divided into two parts, The part nearest the service elevator was filled with neatly stacked chairs and tables, had boxes on shelves and the shelves were in a tidy, straight line. Farther away things were just dumped on the floor in a higgly-piggly pile. From the broken chairs there Danny assumed that this was the pile waiting for an order to be hauled away to the junk yard.

Danny pulled out an Fenton Finder, made sure that it was set so that it wouldn't detect his own ghostly presence then swepted the room. There was no ghost present but it indicated that one had been here recently. Danny had hoped to find the ghost of Patty Melt here and have it out with her before supper. With a sigh of disappointment he followed the Finder to the strongest reading of ectoplasmic activity.

This was in the far corner. For Danny it was easy to tell that a ghost had been living here. There was a pile of clothes laying on top a broken chair. It's missing leg had been replaced with a pile of old menus. Ghosts, being dead, envied the living, and took comfort in anything that would connect them to the living. At least that was Danny's theory. They liked to "sleep" - if that was the right word for it - in old clothes. They would merge with the fabric for hours of rest. Danny had never really felt the urge since when he felt tired he just turned human and slept on his bed. But from all his dealings with ghosts this was something he had learned.

Facing the chair was an old leather jacket on a hanger. It was black with lots of silver studs and fringe hanging from along the sleeves, and across the breast. Beside it was a non-descript electric guitar resting on a cradle. Both looked like they'd been stolen from the Rock museum. Beside it was a square plaque with a 12 inch disc of simulated gold. Moving in close to it Danny could read the name on it: Patty and the Powercats. It was all he needed to be convinced that he had found the hideout of Patty Melt.

He was looking at the jacket to see if there were any identification when his breath momentarily turned frosty white.

He turned, raising an ectoplasmic shield instinctively just as a massive bolt of green fire smashed into him.

"Keep your hands off my stuff!" a familar voice shouted. The bolt of ectoplasm had momentarily blinded Danny. He squinted through stinging eyes at a vague female shape. "Now get out of here and forget I was ever here!" the ghost said, playing a quick melody.

"Ember?" Danny hazard as his vision began to clear. "What are you doing here?"

"I said get out and forget I was ever here!"

"Sorry, can't hear you!" Danny said. He tapped his ears. "Fenton Phones."

"I said to leave my stuff alone!" Ember said and this time a thundering gout of flame leaped from her guitar. Danny had a shield up but the blast just sweep him up and threw him across the room to smash painfully into the brick wall behind him. Danny dropped to the floor, dazed for a moment. Where he had hit was a spider-web of cracks in the plaster in the shape of a teen-age boy.

"Your stuff?" Danny questioned as he picked himself up off the floor. "I don't see any of your stuff here. Al I see are things Patty Melt swiped.

"It's my stuff! Mine!"

"I'm pretty sure that that jacket and guitar belong to the restaurant," Danny said, strength coming back to him rapidly as it always did when he was a ghost. "And the plaque clearly says "Patty and the Powercats."

"It's mine!" Ember insisted.

"What, are you stealing stuff from other ghosts now?" Danny asked as he walked up to about fifteen feet from her. "I came here looking for the ghost of Patty Melt. I don't need you scaring her away."

The ghost's face spasmed. "What did you say?" She asked in a dangerous voice.

"I came here looking for Patty Melt. You know, of Patty and the Powercats? Got screwed over by Groove Town Records, then took a swan dive off the Prentice Building. I was told she was hiding here."

Ember's confused look toward belligerent. "What are you talking about?" she demanded. "This is my place. No one else is allowed here."

"What?" Danny said, confused. "Then what did you do with Patty Melt?"

"There is no Patty Melt. There is just me! Me, Ember McLain! I have always been what I am!" she screamed. "The Ghost of Rock and Roll!"

Danny edged closer to the ghost. He didn't like speaking to her over long distances, and he felt that closer in he could get in a blow that would weaken her long enough to be sucked into the Fenton Thermos. "Oh, come on," he said just to be talking while he moved. "Roll and Rock didn't exist fifty years ago. How could you have been a ghost of rock and roll before rock and roll existed?"

"Rock and roll will never die," Ember muttered but she looked confused, perplexed by what Danny was saying. From time to time her face would spasm again, a shudder that seemed nearly to rip her body apart.

"I'm sorry, Ember, but Patty Melt very much did exist. She sang songs that were real hits, appeared on posters and stuff. You on the other hand - no record of you existing at all."

The female ghost seemed to pale with the mention of each name but her face displayed only confusion. "I'm Ember. Ember McLain! You got that punk? Ember McLain!" she shouted.

"Look, I'm not after you, although my sister wishes you would come back to the PET'EM meetings. I came here looking for the ghost who tried to destroy the Groove Town Records Building. As long as you're here she's not going to show up."

"Who?" Ember was grimacing like she had some kind of monster brain-freeze.

"I told you, Patty Melt."

"There is no Patty Melt!

"Then who blow up the Groove Town Record Building?" Danny was getting concerned by Ember's behavior. She was twitching and snarling in ways he had never seen before.

"He had it coming." She said, at last, in a weak voice.

"Who?" Danny asked.

"He- ... " she paused in confusion. "He..." she began again weakly.

"Colonel Greenbrier," Danny suggested.

"But you never worked for him. It was Patty ... Are you saying that you were Patty Melt?" Danny asked.

"I am who I am!" Ember shouted again, throwing some ectoplasm his way. Danny brushed it aside easily. There was no force behind it.

"Then why did you try to blow up the Groove Town Record Building?" Danny was curious what her answer would be.

"I... I... I have always been." she faltered. She rubbed her forehead as if she had a headache. Then looked up and focused on Danny. There's was an infinite depth of hate and anger in them. Before Danny realized that she had changed, Ember exploded with a blast of green fire like nothing he had seem before. He tried to ward it off with a shield but the shield blew away. He tried to brace himself against the force but the gale of rage was pushing him off his feet. He tried to slid sideways off of the line of fire but it was taking all his strength not to be dashed against the wall again and crushed under her anger.

There was a solid blow against his head and Danny went down. He could see her flame tipped boots standing next to him. "Ember!" she was scream. I am Ember McLain. Say it, pig, SAY MY NAME!"

He could sense that she was swinging back with her guitar and threw a shield over himself. The guitar bounced off but Danny could still feel every ounce of energy in the blow, spread over the length of his body. The guitar thudded against him again and again. At some point Danny passed out.


	4. Chapter 4

The first thought that came to Danny Fenton as he flickered his eyes open and saw the sunset reddened room about hm was that he was going to be late for supper. His mom was going to kill him for that. Then, as he slowly, and painfully climbed to his feet he realized, he realized with surprise that Ember had passed on the chance of killing him as well. While he was grateful to be alive it wasn't like Ember to not kick an opponent when he was down. Not only had she beaten him down as Danny Phantom but exhaustion had forced him back into being Danny Fenton, an even easier prey for her to destroy.

He looked around the room too sore and stiff to move. The sun was shining through the windows visibly lower and redder. He look at his watch and saw that he's been unconscious for a half hour. The room was a shambles. His fight with Ember had blown stuff left and right. At least he wouldn't be the one to have report the news to the boss. He wondered how they were going to explain the mess?

Danny slowly walked around the room, stretching his legs as he had been stretching his shoulders. He found the FentonFinder he dropped during the fight as well as the Fenton Thermos. Again he marveled that Ember had passed up a chance to hurt him. The Thermos wasn't that hard to operate. She probably knew how to work it was well as he did. She could have sucked him up into the inescapable containment field of the Thermos and left him there for who knows how long until someone found him. Since he hadn't told Sam or Tucker where he was going they'd never think to look here. He might have been stuck inside there forever.

The corner where Patty Melt (or was it Ember?) had made her nest was empty (according to the Fenton Finder) but the pile of old clothes on the chair that was Patty's (or Ember's) 'bed.' was still there. The guitar and leather jacket, though, were gone. Perhaps they really were Patty's or Ember's originally, Danny wondered. then recalled: the jacket was a large man's jacket, something the size that Dash Baxter, the high school football star could fit into. But Ember was closer to Danny in size, the jacket would fit her like a tent. Ghosts seem to need to wrap themselves around things that have the aura of human about them. The jacket, like the guitar probably reminded Ember of her past as a human. Her life as Patty Melt, punk rocker? Or was Ember just moving in on Patty Melt's haunting as an attempt to get rid of a rival? Danny found the issue too confusing to think about. Certainly while he was still stumbling around in pain.

A lump of something on the floor of the loft caught Danny's eye. He picked up a shriveled and partially melt ball of plastic. He couldn't figure out what it was at first but as he turned it over in his hand he noticed a small brass plaque embedded in the rest of the mass. He wiggled it loose and pulled it out. In the half-light he could just make out the inscription on the small metal square:

Heart Stomp

"Patty and the Powercats"

1982.

So Ember had made off with the guitar and Jacket that Patty (?) had stolen but had tried to incinerate the award that Patty had stolen. Was it because she was jealous of Patty Melt, or because she _was_ Patty Melt? But if she was Patty Melt, why would she deny it?

The absence of the guitar and jacket suggested that Ember/Patty has moved to a new hideout. How was he going to find it? He'd been lucky that Rollo had known about this one. If he couldn't find her he couldn't ask why she tried to destroy the Groove Town Record Building. Danny had thought that Ember had calmed down since she'd started going to his sisters therapy group, PET'EM. Things had been quieter in Amity Park since Jazz had started the club.. Ghosts seems to prefer coming to her sessions than randomly haunting people.

So what set Ember/Patty off. Was it, as Sam suggested because this was the 30th anniversary of Patty Melt''s death? But why did she deny being Patty Melt? Why did she claim to have always existed when rock and roll obviously was only created fifty years ago. Was she just playing games with Danny, denying the true just to confuse him? He thought back to when he'd thrown those questions into her face. Some people are very good at lying, others not so much. When Ember had denied being Patty Melt she seemed entirely sincere. More over there was that strange spasm that had hit her when she heard the name Patty Melt. Did she know these answers unconsciously but for some reason had suppressed them? Danny would have to ask his sister, Jazz, about that. She was the psychologist in the family.

[I]

By the time Danny had flown back home his ghostly powers have repaired the injuries he'd suffered during his battle with Ember so when he walked down from his bedroom he was walking without any limp or stiffness. He found his sister Watching Dr. Phil as usual, in the living room. "Jazz, can we talk?" he asked, then headed back to his room. He flopped on his bed while his sister pulled up his desk chair next to the bed.

"I feel like I ought to have my 'Little Doctor Freud' notebook with me." she said.

"Not to mention your little Freudian beard, Danny added.

"I do not look good in a beard!"

"I don't know. That mustache says otherwise..."

Her hands flew to cover her lips. "I do not have a mustache!"

Danny laughed. "I ran into Ember today," he added.

"Did you tell her we miss her at the PET'EM meetings?"

"She was too busy thrashing me for casual conversation.

"What did you do to set her off?" Jazz asked, leaning back in the chair, folding her hands under her breasts in what she recognized as an instinctively defensive posture.

"That's the thing, I don't know." Danny was stretching all the while he was laying on his bed. "Here's the thing: I was looking for the ghost to tried to destroy the Groove Town Record Building. That had to be the ghost of Patty Melt because she was a suicide with unfinished business, and it's been 30 years exactly since her death, etc. I'd gotten a tip from Rollo that she might have set up a nest in a store room at the Hard Rock Café. I go there and find it. She's got a Gold Record plaque that she took from the Groove Town building before she tried to blow it down, and a jacket and guitar that I suppose she stole from the Hard Rock Café. So I'm waiting for Patty Melt to show up, but Ember McLain shows up instead. And goes on about how all this stuff was hers. And when I tell her, no, it's all Patty melt's stuff she kind of goes crazy and starts beating me up. In fact," Danny paused, a little embarrassed to have to say this, "she kind of knocked me out. When I came to she was gone, the jacket and guitar were gone but the plaque had been melted down into a lump of charred plastic. I never did see Patty Melt."

"Interesting," Jazz murmured. She unfolded her arms and propped her hands under her chin. "Ember had been rather distraught during the last couple meets she attended. Wouldn't say why; just got ever more wound up then she had been. I suppose that's why she hasn't come to any more meetings of PET'EM."

"Did she kind of spasm every time you pressed her?" Danny wondered "It was kind of weird, but every time I mentioned the name of Patty Melt she'd kind of twitch like she was being hit with a taser. You know, I think she completely lost it when I accused her being Patty Melt."

"You think Ember is Patty Melt?" Jazz leaned forward to stare at her brother.

"I don't know. That's what I really want to talk to you about. On the one hand, they are both ghosts of music and Ember shows up where I expected to find Patty Melt. And come to think of it, Rollo never really said who would be at the Hard Rock Café, only that the ghost who tried to destroy the Groove Town Record Building would be there. But Ember denied being Patty Melt, and as I recall, she claimed that she has always exists. What I wonder is if you've every talked about how ghosts are born during your group sessions, where they come from, and if they remember being born, if ghosts can be said to be born."

Jazz sat silent for a couple minutes, thinking, then slowly, carefully choosing her words, said, "I've asked a time or two but no one ever wants to talk about it. Whether they don't know or whether it's too painful to talk about I can't be sure, but it is something I've wondered about myself. We know that some ghosts are the spirits of the dead who linger on after death but a lot of others ghosts, like Technus or Skulker seem entirely the product of the Ghost Zone. I know we've looked to find any evidence of a prior existence for Ember after the first time she tried taking over the world and couldn't find anything, suggesting that she's another wholly original Ghost Zone creature. But that there are so many specialized ghosts..."

"I call them 'themed'," Danny interjected.

"Themed sounds good. Ember's the ghost of music, Technus is the ghost of technology, Skulker is the ghost of hunting,.."

"And Clockwork is the ghost of time, The box ghost is the ghost of boxes, Rollo's the ghost of spheres..." Danny continued.

"Right," his sister said. "So when Ember says she has always existed maybe in a sense she has. There has always been music so maybe there has always been a ghost of music, and it just changes from time to time as the music changes. Like the Greek Muses, demi-gods who were the patrons of different types of the arts."

"You're saying Ember is a god?" Danny sat up looking disgusted at his sister.

"Not a god, really. But... well, maybe. I mean, what were most of the gods of the Greeks and Romans, they were spirits, influences. They weren't 'gods' like we know of it."

"So you're saying that two thousand years ago Ember was floating around worshiped as the inspiration for music?"

"It's an idea," Jazz answered defensively. "It would explain why Ember thinks she has already existed when rock and roll, her particular idiom has only been around for fifty years."

"OK, but why was she acting like Patty Melt's stuff was her's?" Danny wondered.

"I've got two ideas on that. One is that, as the ghost of music, Ember absorbs musical ghosts as they are created, which would be how she stays up-to-date with music. So Ember is really a composite of all the other ghosts of music. So she is and isn't Patty Melt."

"Hmmmm?" Danny murmured, thoughtfully.

"The other idea, is that when ghosts are created the birthing process is so painful, or horrible that they blot out all that pain from their memorizes. So they literally can't remember who they were before, except maybe on a subconscious level. That would explain why Ember was getting anxious as she neared the thirtieth anniversary of her birth without knowing just why. And why she would deny being Patty Melt."

"So which is it?" Danny asked.

"I don't know!" Jazz protested. "I was just spinning out two ideas that have occurred to me. I have no idea why one is trust"

"And I don't see how either one is going to help me put to rest Patty Melt and or Ember McLain.

"You'll think of something," Jazz reassured. "You always do. Shot! It's past six. We're late getting the table set!" she jumped out of her chair and dashed through the door. Danny followed more slowly, thinking about what she had had to say.

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTE: A Danny Fenton Timeline. Danny Phantom, the show debuted in 2004, and Danny, we're told. was just 14. That would mean he was born in 1990. Jazz, his sister, was born two year earlier, 1988. That would place Jack and Maddie's marriage to either 1987 or 1986. But how old were they when they got married? I know they were in college together, and had free rule of a lab to construct their prototype portal. Undergraduates don't usually get those kind of privileges. So we can assume that Jack and Maddie graduated with a , which would make than 22, and were probably in a Master's Program,which typically takes two years. I always assumed that they got their Doctorates as well, which would be another two years minimum. So John and Maddie would be at least 26. Assuming they married right after graduating, in 1986, that would mean Jack was born in 1960! Also that he would have been 22 when Patty Melt was popular, and not Danny's age as he remembered.

2004 is 8 years in the past by this point but to my way of thinking it will always be 2004 in.


	5. Chapter 5

By the time Danny got downstairs Jazz was hurriedly throwing plates and silverware on the table. Their mother was working at the stove while their father came up from the basement lab after a moment, wiping his hands on a paper towel. He sat down at his place at the head of the table, smelled deeply of the fragrant meal cooking and announced "Smells delicious, Maddie." He said that every night, like clockwork, just like he then turned on the TV so they could watch the evening news. And even thought he said it every night Danny noticed that his mother always smiled when he did so. His mom brought over the last dish, a biscuity casserole called "impossible pie" made with ham, broccoli and cheese. Lots and lots of cheese. All toasted to a nice crispness. It was one of Danny's favorite meals.

He was waiting for a square to be served to him when he noticed his breathe turn frosty. His eyes quickly flicked around the dining room but no ghosts were there. However the TV news was saying something interesting.

"Good Evening, Tom. I'm standing in front of Pinehurst, the palatial estate of disgraced music mogul Colonel Randall Greenbriar, who today reported being assaulted in his house by person or persons unknown. The assault took place around three-thirty this afternoon as Colonel Greenbriar was reading in his den. The assailant burst into the room, tearing paintings off the wall, overturning statues and finally throwing Colonel Greenbriar out of his chair and into an unused fireplace. Colonel Greenbriar called police for help but they could find no one still in the house. Col. Greenbriar was taken to the hospital but released later with only minor bruising. Police are asking that if you know anything about this incident to call them at 1-800-Eye-spy4."

"You know what this reminds me of, Maddie," Danny's father said through a forkful of casserole. Danny couldn't stop himself from rolling his eyes. Ghosts! It was always ghosts with his father. Of course he was right about half the time. But still, every time his parents would rush off on a crusade against ghosts like this they ended up looking ridiculous. Which meant that the next day he would be the butt of endless jokes about his parent's ghost-busting.

"Ghosts!" his father declared after a pause. "This sounds like the work of a ghost. Why, I bet that explosion at the Groove Town Records Building was ghost-related as well. Maddie! We have to investigate!"

"After supper, dear," Danny's mother told him. "The ghost has already come and gone so whatever clues are left will remain until we get there. And I don't intent to eat cold 'impossible pie'."

"Right you are, dear, as always. Could you cut off another little piece from the coroner?"

Danny was doing a lot of thinking as he chewed a broccoli floret. He hadn't looked at the time when he had gotten to the storage room at the Hard Rock Café but considering the time to get home from school, talking with Rollo and flying to the Hard Rock Café it would have been around four-four-thirty. So if it had been Ember who had attack Colonel Greenbriar at three-thirty and she's flown back to the storage room, she would have got there around four-four-thirty as well. Just in time to attack him. So the odds were that this weren't hooligans from the community but one dead, very pissed off rocker. That also solved his problem of how to find Ember. He'd just wait at Greenbriar's house until she showed up again. And she would because it didn't look like she was done with him.

But how could he wait around for her when his parents were running around the place? They're as likely detect him there as Ember and when it came to beating up on ghosts - they were indiscriminate. Also they didn't know that Danny was a ghost. So the whole thing was a mess.

He looked at Jazz to see if his sister had been thinking along the same lines as he. She was eating and looking at nothing in particular, lost in her own little world. Drat! No help from that corner. He had to keep his parents away from the Greenbriar mansion. But how? A diverse!

"Say, Dad," he began. "Are you guys going to see Mr Greenbriar first or check out the Groove Town Record Building?"

"Colonel! That's Colonel Greenbriar."

"But you said he wasn't really a colonel," Danny argued before remembering that this was taking him away from his plan. "What I was think is, because the ghost tried to destroy the Groove Town building first maybe you should start there, see what kinds of readings you'll get with your instruments and have a better idea what kind of ghost you're dealing with before you confront it at 'The Colonel's' place."

"It doesn't matter what kind of ghost it is when we hit him with a Mk4 blaster." his father replied.

"Still it would be a good source of data for our various projects," Maddie Fenton suggested. Danny's mother was always the thoughtful one. If she thought the record building was the better place to start she'd lead Jack Fenton around to seeing it that way, too. Sure enough, by the time Jack Fenton announced that he couldn't eat another bit, marking the end of supper Maddie had convinced him to investigate the office building before Greenbriar's home.

Danny and Jazz were left to clear off the table again while their parents loaded the Ghost Assault Vehicle with all the gear they'd need. "Why wait until the thirtieth Anniversary?" Danny wondered as they worked' "I would have thought the twenty-fifth anniversary would have been the big one, quarter of a century and all that."

"I think Greenbriar was still in prison then," Jazz answered. "I think I read that he only got out last year, maybe two years ago."

"So the thirtieth would be the first anniversary where he wasn't suffering for what he did to her. That makes sense." Danny said. "Look I'm going to go check out Colonel Greenbriar while our parents are checking out the other location. If I don't come back... you might have to tell them about the accident." Danny meant when he had become a ghost; what he meant was that if he didn't come back may be because Jack and Maddie Fenton had destroyed the wrong ghost.

"Be careful," Jazz told him. Then called back to him. "You said calling Ember 'Patty Melt' seemed to disrupt her."

"Yeah, she kind of went twitchy."

"I wonder what calling her by her birth name might do?"

""Sybil O'Shay?

"That was just another stage name. I mean the name she was given when she was born."

"Good luck finding out that."

"I think I know of a way. I'll text you if I turn anything up."

[]

Danny had to follow the roads out to Pinehurst. It wasn't a part of the city he was familiar with. The estate stood on top of a ridge overlooking the city. In the distance was a nice view of the lake as well, glinting quietly in the moonlight. The grounds was marked off by a three foot high wall of field stone, topped with iron palisades tipped with spearheads. The house itself was set well back from the gate and connected by a narrow winding road. Danny floated over the gate and took a beeline straight up to the building. It was a sprawling building two stories high with gabled windows set in the roof suggesting a third floor for servants. There were four tall, white pillars supporting an antebellum style porch. Near the steps to the porch was a cast iron jockey statue. It was hard to tell in the darkness but it looked black. A fake colonel living in a fake plantation house with a colored jockey lawn ornament. This Greenbrier guy was looking more and like a real jerk.

Danny didn't bother announcing himself but just drifted through the door and looked into one room after another until he found someone. It was an old man, mostly bald with a fringe of grey hair. He looked thin and pallid, like he's not been out in the sun for a long time. He wore a corduroy smoking jacket with leather patches on the elbows. The jacket looked old and sort of engulfed the old man. He's lost a lot of weight since first buying that coat. He was siting in a large chair in front of a fireplace with a small fire crackling in it. A wineglass with something red in it stood on an end table next to the chair. The room, while it had obviously been cleaned up showed signs of the recent assault. Display pillars were empty, unfaded squares on the wall spoke of removed pictures. There were some tears in the wall paper.

"What did she want?" Danny asked, floating in front of the man unexpectedly.

He screamed and tried to back his way out and over the top of the chair. "What do you want from me?" he finally asked when he realized he couldn't get out of his chair.

"I want to know what she said to you?"

"Who?"

"The ghost that tore up this room."

"Ghosts? There are no such thing as ghosts," the old man insisted.

"Hello? I'm right here! I *am* a ghost. I want to know about the other ghost."

"Can't you people - things - whatever, leave me alone," he quavered

"I'd love to," Danny said, "but I'm trying to stop the other ghost from harming you and until she gives up, I can't really leave."

The old man had settled back in his chair and seemed to have lost some of his earlier fright. He eyed Danny closely, then picked up his wine glass and took a big gulp. "What are you two doing, playing some kind of "Christmas Carol" thing on me? Get me all filled up with Christmas cheer and give away my money. Bah!" suddenly he flung his glass with the wine at Danny. Danny turned intangible and the glass and liquid flew through him and crashed on the floor beyond. "Humbug," the old man finished.

"She said she wanted my money. That I owed it too her. Like hell. I earned every penny that went into this place. I worked hard and deserve every cent here."

"But you cheated all those musicians who signed with you," Danny reminded him.

"I made them stars! You can't believe how much I worked to make them what they were. Selecting the right music to record, getting stores to carry their albums, getting the radio stations to play their tunes. I worked night and day for those people and the minute they get a little bit of money they come crying to me that they deserve more!"

"But you weren't paying them what you contracted to pay them," Danny reminded him. "Wasn't that what the law suit was all about. You went to prison because you were cheating them out of millions."

"Whiny little pricks..." the old man growled.

"What did she look like, the ghost that came here today demanding your money?" Danny asked.

"Don't you know?"

"I want to be sure who I'm dealing with."

"You're not working with her."

"No, I'm trying to stop her."

"You're doing a lousy job"Greenbriar sneered.

"She didn't look like anyone you knew before..."

"Hah! She had green hair. It glowed and floated around like a flame. No one has hair like that!"

"Kind of like mine," Danny pointed out, "only green?"

The old man rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes," he assented. "And she had tattoos around her eyes, tight pants and a kind of cropped shirt with one shoulder. I could do something with a look like that, make up a pretty good act. She wouldn't even have to sing. We could autotune everything. But all she does is fly through the door and start tearing things up. Then she starts demanding my money and when I told her I don't have any money she screams and throws me into the fireplace."

"That was before you started the fire?" Danny asked.

"What do you think?" the old man snapped back.

"It looks like you have a lot of money here. Maybe you could sell some of this stuff and make restitution to all the people you ripped off."

"Never!" the old man shouted. "This is my house; my money. The law says you can't attach a man's house for his debts. They took every thing else from me but they're not getting my house!"

"It's kind of big for you, don't you think. Surely you could sell this house, buy a smaller one and turn over the remainder to your former clients. It might satisfy Ember McLain enough that she'd stop haunting you." Danny suggested.

"What are you - the bill collector of ghosts? I told you - this is my house and no one is going to take it away from me, not even this Ember McLame person."

"McLain," Danny corrected. "You don't remember her? Used to work for you under the name of Patty Melt?"

"Doesn't look anything like that bitch."

Danny remembered that he didn't look like himself either. Something about the ectoplasmic aura ghosts emit distorts their looks. But something about what the guy had said pissed Danny off. "I thought you were supposed to be a real woman friendly recording studio. You had a lot of them signed up as I recall."

"What of it, they're easier to cheat then men; don't ask as many questions."

Children aren't born cynical, it's something they learn as they grow up. At fourteen Danny still tended to have an idealized view of people. To hear someone speak so casually, so cynically of ripping people off was more than he could take. His face drew down into a scowl, his eyes, normally glowing turned into little spotlights of intense fire.

"I came here to protect you from Ember McLain's rage but now I don't know why ..." He paused as he heard the clatter of half-track treads coming up the drive-ways. The Fenton Family Ghost Assault vehicle! His parents had taken less time then he had expected to look at the record company building. The last thing he wanted as to be here when they burst in looking for ghosts to shoot up.

He pointed a finger at Colonel Greenbrier. "I won't let Ember kill you because I won't let any ghost hurt anyone. Even someone as despicable as you. But so help me I'll see to it that you will never have a day of rest for as long as your life." And with that Danny Phantom rocketed up through the ceiling and out of the house.


	6. Chapter 6

Danny soared out of Colonel Greenbriar's mansion, arcing towards the back, away from his parent's approaching Ghost Assault Vehicle. He landed in the woods beyond the extensive lawn and changed back into Danny Fenton. He raced along the edge of the woods as fast as he dared in the dark, until he came around the house enough to see the tricked out RV rocking to a stop at the front of the house. He was about a hundred yards from the driveway.

His father hopped out of the side door on the converted Winnebago carrying a Mk 4 blaster. Normally the Mark 4 was described in the FentonWorks catalogue as a tripod-mounted heavy defense weapon. It was too large and too heavy for most people to carry by themselves. People tend to think one word when they see Jack Fenton and that is "fat." They forget how tall and broad shouldered he also was. The mark 4 was, to him, what a shotgun was for other people.

He piled out of the large van, took up a position several feet from the vehicle and scanned the skies. "Perimeter set up, Maddie," he called.

Danny's mother came out of the van, completely covered in a blue jumpsuit, hood pulled over her head and hair, goggles covering her eyes. She was dragging a couple of back packs filled with ghost-related testing equipment. She knelt on the ground and started opening up the packs and setting things out.

"Ooo, what are we playing," a soft voiced husked into Danny's ear. "Hide and Seek?"

"Ember!" he said, spinning around to face her.

"That's my name. Please wear it out."

"Yes. and you're going to be 'it' if you don't get out of here."

"That's not a very friendly thing to say to someone who saved your life."

"You didn't save my life. You were the one trying to kill me." Danny snapped back.

"I couldn't hurt you. I like my Stud Muffins alive, warm and breathing," the female ghost has sidled up to Danny and was rubbing her face along his arm.

"I'm not your stud muffin, meat puppet, or boy toy. There's nothing we have in common!"

"And yet, here we are..," Ember cooed.

"It's not funny. You've got to get out of here before you light up my parent's ghost detectors like a roman candle."

"Aren't you afraid they'll pick you up, too?" Ember asked sulkily.

"As you may have noticed I'm human right now. My ectoplasmic signature is nothing compared to you. Ember, you've got to go, beat it, vamoose ... oh, and don't come back. I won't let you haunt Colonel Greenbriar!" The last comment stopped the tattooed ghost rocker in her tracks. Her face crumpled from playful banter to anger. "He has to die!" She snarled.

"Who?" Danny probed. He was still curious if Ember was Patty Melt, and whether she remembered anything of that life. If she knew who lived here that meant she was Patty Melt.

"Him. That guy." Ember's answer was evasive.

"Don't know who he is or can't say his name?"

"Have you met him? He's a horrible person. He deserves to die." she said, not answering Danny's question.

"I have. He's quite a dick," Danny said. "I've never met a more loathsome person who wasn't out to kill me. But I won't let you kill him. I won't let any ghost hurt any human no matter how much they might deserve it. But I swear to you I will find a way to make him miserable for the rest of his life."

"Don't tell me what I can or can't do, twerp! I've come to wipe him off the face of the earth and I intend to!"

Shouts from behind them brought them around to where the Fenton Family Assault Vehicle was parked. Maddie Fenton was holding a Fenton Finder in one hand, pointing right at them with her the other. "That way, Jack. It's massive!"

"Now look what you've done!" Danny accused.

"You're not going to stop me from getting at him!" Ember declared.

"You can't even say his name. And you won't be able to get through my parents!"

"I just need a diversion." she said and grinned evilly. "Tag! You're It!" and, grabbing him by the arm, threw Danny high into the air directly at his parents!

Danny squawked in surprise as he arced high over the Greenbriar mansion and plummeted towards the ground; aimed, apparently, straight as the half-tracked van. Ember must have partially levitated him because a throw that far would have torn his arm off while Danny was in his mortal form. And if he started in his mortal form - well, that would be the end of it when he hit the van. But if he went ghost then he, not Ember, would be the brightest source of ectoplasmic energy. He'd escape death from falling on the van but would become the target of his parents blaster fire.

There really wasn't much choice.

A brief flash of light marked Danny's transition from mortal to ghost. He swept away from the mansion, missing the top of the van by inches. He wanted to find Ember while he still had an idea where she was but three quick blasts from his father's gun reminded Danny that he had more immediate problems.

His father was not the greatest shot in the world but his mother was, and if she unlimbered whatever weapon she was packing he would be in trouble. He would have to get out of range of their instruments, switch back to human and wait for them to leave. Ember would have to wait.

Jack Fenton was still filling the sky with blistering bolts of ectoplasmic fire when Danny heard a different sound behind him, a deep pitched boomphf! that could only mean a net-gun. The net was made of ghost-resistant cable, weighted around the edges so it would wrap about any ghost it hit. Danny dodged to the left thinking to avoid the net-gun but a second later he felt the edge of the netting wrap around his leg.

There was only one way to defeat the net-gun, which he had realized which watching his parents experiment with the gun. The weights pulled the net inexorable forward, so Danny somersaulted around so he was facing back the way he had come. A thrust of acceleration send him back towards the van and his parents. But the net, continuing out into the woods, slide off his leg and disappeared. He was free!

But heading right into the fire from his parents weapons. He had to get away from them somehow, but how do you fool a Fenton Finder? An idea glimmered in Danny's head. He swooped around his father, passing so close that he could have reached out and tweaked his nose. Then he swerved past his mother who had dropped the net-gun and was reaching for a small pistol, a Firebug930. But before she could get it out of her holster Danny plunged into the side of the Fenton Ghost Assault Vehicle. Phasing seamlessly through its walls. Jack Fenton dashed around the van and waited for Danny to emerge from the other side. And waited. And waited a little bit more.

"Maddie," he finally hollered. "Do you see that ghost boy anywhere?"

"Didn't he come out on your side?" she replied.

"No!"

"I'm not picking him up on the Finder, hon," she told him a moment later.

Jack came back around the van and looked at the readings on the Finder that she handed him. "He must be inside the RV. I'll go in and check it out."

He reached for the door. "Be careful, Jack," Maddie said. "I don't know how it's masking his ecto signature. It could be very dangerous.

Jack paused, then set down his massive Mark 4 and fished out a small squirt-gun looking device from one of the packs Maddie had dragged out of the half-track. " 'Goop' might be more in order in a case like this," he told her, then quietly opened the door to the van. He tried to do a forward roll into the van but ran out of room half way through the roll, smacking up against the end of the dining nook's bench seats.

"I'm OK!" he shouted as he scrambled to his feet. Gun held stiffly in front of him like all the best actors on cop shows, Jack Fenton sidled into the cockpit of the RV. Flipping on the overhead light he could see no one and no thing in, on or behind the seats there. He advanced towards the rear of the RV, pausing the throw open the door into the shower (empty), the toilet (empty) and the two bedrooms at the rear (also empty). With a grunt of disappointment, Jack made his way back to the dining area of the van, pausing to whip open a couple overhead cabinets along the way.

He stuck his head out the door and told Maddie Fenton, "Nothing, hon. It's completely empty. Are you picking up any signals on the finder?"

"I'm getting some residual reading from when that ghost went past us but it just disappeared as soon as it entered the RV and hasn't left. But the signal is too weak and diffuse to locate him. And there's a lot of interference from that other ghost ut there in the woods."

Jack Fenton look a final look around the inside of the RV, then stepped out, closing the door behind him. "We'll figure this mystery out later. Let's introduce ourselves to Colonel Greenbriar and set up our base inside his house."

Picking up the Mark 4 blaster again, Jack lead the way to the door.

A couple minutes passed quietly inside the RV. Then unexpectedly one of the bench seats in the dining nook started bumping around, then lifted up. Danny Fenton crawled out, wiping sweat off his face. He repositioned the bench seat and pressed down until he heard a click of holds snapping into place. He softly walked up to the window in the side door and looked out. His parents were gone.

Danny and Jazz had spent most of their time on family vacations sitting at the table there, playing games or reading books. Inevitable they had found that the seats pulled off to reveal additional storage space, but since his parents never put stuff there, Danny assumed they didn't know they existed. So when he had rocketed into the RV he had braked to a sudden halt, switched back to his mortal form and crawled into the space under the seat. He had nearly lost it when his father had crashed into the seat entering the van. Then again when his cell phone has suddenly vibrated. He was thankful that he had turned off the ring-tone earlier that day. He had sweated bullets all the while he had been in there. That his hidey hole under the seat was small and airless just made it all the more uncomfortable.

Danny pulled out his phone and looked at the message, wondering who might have called him so late at night. To his surprise it was from his sister. The text was short:

Social Security Death Index

Bertha Green

Jun 15, 1957 - Nov 7, 1984

He checked his watch. Today was Nov 7th, 2004, exactly thirty years after this woman had died. Could this be the birth name of Ember McLain? It didn't say how she died, or even if she had been a musician. Still, why would his sister send him this information if she didn't think it would help. He noticed then that Agnes had been 27 when she's died. A lot of rock and rollers had died at 27, Danny recalled. If this Ember's real name, how was it going to help him? He wasn't sure but any little edge might help.

Danny slowly opened the van's door and eased out, planning to return to the woods to find Ember and have it out with her when he heard a shot. It can so sudden and seemed to echo about the house. Gunfire! And his parents were inside the house!

Danny ran up the steps and through the open door. Inside was a long, high ceilinged hall paneled in a rich, light colored wood. To the left was a large sweeping stairs leading to the second floor. To the right was a small door that looked to open into a closet. Danny slipped through the door, anxious to be out of sight until he knew what was going on. That there hadn't been a second shot suggested that things weren't as bad as he feared.

The room was a coat closet he surmised, from the many hooks mounted on the walls. A second, larger door opened into some kind of sitting room done up in antique furniture. A door at the other end of that room opened into a another, larger sitting room.. this decorated in a 50s style with a large screen TV at one end. Lights appeared under the door at the far end of that room, and as Danny neared he could hear voices.

A voice. Colonel Greenbriar's. Danny pressed his ear to the door to hear what he was saying.

"...I don't care if you were the President of the United States! This is my property and you're trespassing on it. Get out of my house, get off my land or my next shot won't be over your head!"

Danny slowly turned the knob on the door and pushed it out an inch. He could see Colonel Greenbrier standing next to his chair, a gun in his hand. It gleamed silver in the firelight. It was pointed roughly towards his parents.

"But there's a ghost..." Danny's father began.

"There's no such thing as ghosts!" Greenbrier declared. "But there are such things as trespassers and I'd be entirely within my rights to shoot you where you stand!"

"Actually, only if your life is in imminent danger," Danny's mother corrected him. "You can't shot someone just because they're on their land."

"He's holding a gun!" Greenbrier waved his gun at the Mk 4 blaster in Jack's hand. "How much more imminent is that?"

"It's not a gun. It's am ecto-plasmic projector..." Danny's father began.

"It looks like a gun to me!" Greenbriar's gun had stopped waving and pointed straight at Danny's father now.

"Jack, dear, this may not be the right time..." Maddie Fenton began.

"Dammit! There's a ghost - no two ghosts! - wandering around this house and I intend to capture them tonight!" Jack Fenton had that bulldog look in his eye that Danny recognized as too well. Just as his father started to advance on the old man with the gun pointed at him, Danny acted.

A flash of light burst around him as he converted to his ghost form. He rocketed through the door into the door, screaming in terror as he saw Greenbrier's fingers tightening on the trigger.

The gun bucked in Greenbriar's hand, flame filled the room but Danny had already grasped it in his hand, jerking it around. The bullet missed his father by inches. Danny kept pulling on the gun until he had torn it from Greenbriar's hand. He went immaterial and fled through the wall, the sound of his mother's Firebug 930 blasting a series of craters in the wall behind him.

As soon as he got outside Danny dropped the gun on the lawn.

He was trying to think of what he should do next when the sky lit up with fire. His father had followed him outside and was blasting away with his Mark 4 weapon. At this distance his father probably couldn't hit him but if his mother came out, she wasn't as likely to miss.

Danny raced to place the bulk of the mansion between him and his parents, slid into the third floor attic and once again turned mortal.

He found himself in a small room filled with a bed, a dresser and a table. Light came in through a smaller dormer window. The absence of a sink or toilet suggested that this was a servant's room. He walked to the door and tried it. It opened with a squeak into a narrow, shabby looking hallway. There was light to the left so he went that way.

The hall ended with an open door leading into an unfinished part of the attic. It was in half-light from a number of small windows set into gables along the roof. Dust was heavy everywhere. Danny would have turned around and gone the other way but something caught his eye. In a far corner was a familiar looking leather jacket and guitar. He had accidentally stumbled upon Ember's new lair. In hindsight he should have thought of it. Where else to go when one is intend on haunting someone then into their house.

But where was Ember?

He heard some shouting, dimming, coming from outside. He went over to one of the windows and forced the pane up. "I've called the police, you idiots. Morons. Nincompoops! They'll be here within five minutes. If you're still on my property I'm pressing charges. As it is I'll be sending you the bill for the damages to my house. I hope you're happy, you ghost-happy -!" Danny was surprised to hear that profanity come out of the old man's mouth.

He couldn't see his parents from this angle but after a minute he heard the throaty roar as the RV's diesel engine fired up and with a clatter of rubber treads on concrete the van took off, eventually coming into Danny's sight as it passed through the gate at the foot of the drive. Surprisingly, Danny felt a little alone watching them drive off. They wouldn't be getting in the way of his plans now. And they were out of danger from the crazy old man who lived in this place. Even though it was for the best, Danny hated to see them go.

He pulled the window shut as he thought about how he was going to deal with Ember.

Or find her.


	7. Chapter 7

Danny paced the storage room for a bit then realized that, with his parents gone, Ember had no reason to come back to her lair; she could as easily be going after Colonel Greenbriar again. He needed some way of luring Ember back here. What was there here that could draw the ghost rocker away from her vengeance? Looking around, Danny noticed the fringed leather jacket Ember had claimed as her own. On the principle that the surest way to make it rain is to wash one's car, Danny went over and picked the jacket up. As he was about to slide his arm into the sleeve he noticed a small cloth tag stitched into the lining next to the armhole. It was about as invisible a place to put a tag as anywhere. Danny read what was on the tag, smiled, and finished putting the jacket on.

As he had expected the jacket fit him like a tent. The arms were too long, the hem was down below his crotch and he could almost wrap the front around him twice. Danny was normal sized for a fourteen year old. He was small compared to seniors like Dash Baxter but he had a final growth spurt to come which would even up the sizes. Ember McLain looked about 25 but as a girl - or girl ghost - she was about the same size as Danny. Maybe a little larger, but not by much. This leather jacket, if it was hers, would have fit her as badly as it did him. Of course he knew that already. The tag had told him who this jacket belonged to, and it wasn't Ember McLain / Patty Melt / or Sybil O'Shay.

After a few long minutes Danny began to wonder if there really was a telepathic link between Ember and her things. She was certainly taking her time showing up. He was about to hang the jacket back up and go looking for her when his breath run cold, frosting in the air. He spun around...

"What did I tell you about touching my stuff?" Ember demanded. She stood stiffly erect with her hands clenched in tight fists at her side.

"It's not really your stuff," Danny reminded her.

"It's mine!" the girl ghost repeated.

"Even if this jacket and that guitar are yours, that Gold Record plaque you incinerated was clearly "Patty Melt's". Why are you stealing Patty Melt's stuff?"

"There is no..." Ember left the sentence hanging in the air. Her jaw worked but no words came out, it was if not only did hearing the name "Patty Melt" hit her like a blow she couldn't even say the name. "There's just me, Ember McLain! " she finished after a pause.

"But what do you have against Groove Town Records?" Danny persisted.

"He hurt me?"

"Who?"

"Him... That...man..."

"The one downstairs? The one you beat up earlier today. He has a name, you know. Surely you know what his name is?" Danny wasn't sure if this was how his sister would go about things. He wanted to get some kind of rise from Ember, get her to admit to being Patty Melt before telling her to lay off Greenbriar. Until she admitted to being Patty Melt he couldn't be sure anything he said to her about Greenbriar would sink in.

"He's a shit, an asshole!" she screamed. "Have you ever met the man?"

"Yes, I have, tonight, and you're right, he's a horrible person. But he's still a person, Ember, and I've swore to protect all people from harm by ghosts, even a really awful one like him. I can't let you harm him."

"He deserves to die!"

"For what? What has he done to you, to Ember McLain? I've looked. There is no record of an Ember McLain signed on to Groove Town Records. Or with any other label in any other city in the US. _You_ don't exist! Now Patty Melt, she existed. As did Sybil O'Shay before her. They had bands, released albums, played concerts. But Ember McLain, until your "Remember My Name" tour, never existed."

Ember was beginning to pant, which is pointless in a ghost since they didn't breath. It was still a sign of great emotional distress which Danny wasn't seeing because he was too obsessed with pushing ember's button.

"You tell me there's no ghost of Patty Melt involved, that there's only you, so why are you fighting Patty Melt's fight? Why are you trying to get revenge on a man whose name you don't seem to ever know? Why are you doin-"

Danny barely had time to throw his hands up in front of his face as Ember explodes with a massive fireball. He tried to extrude a shield to protect himself but the blast was eating away the shield as fast as he could form it.

Finally the withering heat subsided. Danny opened his eyes with a gasp, sucking in cool air, that he didn't really need but was a habit from his mortal side. He turned his hands to look at them, expecting to find them charred, burnt, and was surprised to find them only reddened, painful but not actually damaged. The jacket he had on, though, had burnt away down to the elbows and the rest was charred and brittle. The lengths of fringe were breaking off and falling to the floor as he moved.

"Now no one gets the jacket," he quipped as he slide it off. "That label I told you about? It says "The New York Theatrical Properties Company". It's a fake. A prop for the Hard Rock Cafe. I doubt that anyone in the rock and roll business has ever worn it. And no one ever wi-" Danny stopped speaking as he got his first real look at Ember. She was changing. Growing taller, skinnier, with gangly arms and legs, enormous hands, breasts and hips flattening; her face growing long with a pronounced chin. Her hair was changing from a floating green flame to lank, almost stringy black hanging down her back and over part of her face.

"Ember?" Danny asked in confusion.

"You wanted Patty Melt, well now you've got her!" The ghost said. Where Ember had been cute in a delicate, rounded sort of way, this new ghost was... not unhandsome, striking in appearance and filled with such anger that Danny involuntarily took a step back.

"Ember?" Danny repeated.

"Ember's gone. There's just me." the ghost snarled and leaped at Danny swinging a flaming guitar that had suddenly materialized in her hands.

Danny ducked under the swinging guitar, then floated backwards, putting some distance between him and the ghost who used to be Ember McLain.

"What did you do to Ember?" Danny demanded of this new ghost.

"Nothing. I _am_ Ember. You just made me remember what I was before. You bastard, you piece of..." Ember (Patty?) went on for a time calling Danny increasing foul names. "You made me remember!" She concluded. "Do you have any idea what it's like to die? Every bone in your body broken but you're not dead yet. Your brain keeps on thinking, feeling and all it can feel is the incredible pain of being smashed up. And then you start to die; your mind severing from your body, one painful connection at a time. Is it any wonder that ghosts never remember how they died? It would drive them insane if they did! But you... you had to make me remember!"

She came after Danny again, swinging her guitar by the neck like a club. He back away, blocked the guitar when he could, tried to maneuver around Ember when he could. Danny didn't have time to think, the ghost he had raised up was so crazed, so angry that she never slowed down for a second.

A lucky twist gave Danny a moment to blast the flaming guitar Patty Melt was wielding with a blob of sticky ectoplasm, plastering it to the ceiling of the attic. She wrestled with it for a moment.

"If you're Ember McLain, why don't' you look like her?" he asked during the brief respite.

"This is what I looked like, this is the real me. Ember is what I always wanted to be. Cute, not a monster like this. Who would want to go through life looking like this?"

"You're not ugly," which sounded lame ever as he was saying it. "I mean my father had your poster in his room when he was a kid. He must have thought you were good looking."

"Hah!" she snorted, still struggling with the gummed up guitar. "He was probably lusting after the Powercats. They were beautiful. I was just the front woman." She got the guitar dislodged and came after Danny again. "The only good thing about dying," she swing the guitar, catching Danny off guard and driving him to the floor, " is that you can choose to look anyway you want to. Now I'm the pretty one... At least until you called me back!" She teed off on Danny like a golf ball, he bounced off one wall and through the roof on the opposite side.

When his head stopped ringing he was floating outside Greenbriar's mansion and Patty Melt was baring down on him. He threw up a shield to block the flaming guitar and tried to think of a way out of this. In terms of sheer power this engaged Ember/Patty Melt had him whipped. She might run out of steam eventually but Danny wasn't sure he could play a defense game long enough for that to happen. He had the Fenton Thermos strapped to his back as he always did but the only way to get a ghost sucked into the containment device was to weaken them first. That didn't seem likely. Maybe if he could draw out Ember's personality again she wouldn't be as angry, and therefore not as strong as this Patty Melt personality...

"Ember, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have teased you." He called. "I'm sure if we had a moment to talk we could work out something that would make us both happy. Ember?"

"Ember's gone," the ghost of Patty Melt answered. "She's not coming back."

"But I have an idea how you can have your revenge on Colonel Greenbriar that doesn't involve killing him."

"I want him dead!" the ghost screamed back. They had been circling around the mansion as they talked, trading blows that slowed neither one of them down.

Danny suddenly did a somersault and flew directly at the ghost of Patty Melt. He wrest the flaming guitar from her hands and pushed her back when she tried reaching for it. "I won't let you hurt anyone! Let me talk to Ember," he told the ghost.

"Never! You awoke me, now deal with it!" She leaped forward and got a hand on her guitar. They wrestling silently over it before she ripped it out of Danny's grasp. She swung at his head almost immediately. Danny fell back over the woods to gain some time to think.

If he could lead her back to FentonWorks there was a 50/50 chance that his father, with the Mk4 blaster would knock the right ghost out of the sky. For a moment that seemed like better odds then he had here. Then he recalled there was a better than even chance that his mother would follow up and knock out whoever his father missed. If it were just his father he'd take the chance but with them together... No. He'd have to solve this problem here.

He could deal with this if he could just get Ember back. He wondered how his sister, the amateur psychologist would do that. She had read dozens of books on the working of the mind. She would surely have an idea on how to deal with the ghost of Patty Melt. Unfortunately he didn't read any of those books, he didn't have a clue what to do. He could try his Ghostly Wail. It was guaranteed to knock her down, but it was also guaranteed to knock him down as well. Hopefully he would wake up from the after-effects before Ember did so he could suck her into the Fenton Thermos. On the other hand the Ghostly Wail was pretty indiscriminate. If he wasn't careful it would not only knock out Ember/Patty Melt, but the whole Pinehurst mansion and part of the surrounding forest as well. That wasn't a good idea, though at the moment it seemed like the best idea he had.

His thoughts were interrupted as Patty Melt closed in again, still swinging her guitar once again like a club. Patty Melt was clearly a different person from Ember McLain. All she did was charge in for a physical assault. Ember would have laid back and used a variety of attacks, flame blasts, hypnotic blasts from her guitar. She was clever. Patty Melt was direct, pure, raw energy.

They danced back over the forest. Danny laid hands on the guitar again, pulling himself close to the rock ghost face. "Come on, Ember," he panted. "Don't be like this. We were friends, sort of," it was a bit of a lie but Danny wanted to appeal to Ember's amorous side."You always called me your Stud Muffin. Remember? Meat Puppet? Remember all the good times we had together?"

That last might have been over the top since he couldn't recall them ever having "good time." It was usually something like this, locked in a life-or-death struggle...

"Stop crying for your made-up girlfriend," the ghost of Patty Melt snarled. "You wanted me and now you've got me."

"Ember isn't made..." Then it struck him. Sure Ember was a made up persona, but so was Patty Melt. And if Ember always got twtchy when he said 'Patty Melt', what would happen if Patty Melt heard her real name. The name Jazz had found on the Social Security Death Registry...

"You're as much of a fraud as Ember," he shouted at the ghost of Patty Melt. "You're name isn't Patty Melt. And it isn't Sybil O'Shay. You're Bertha! Bertha Green. You must have hated your name and yourself from the day you were born, you've changed it so often!"

The guitar they were wrestling for exploded into flames, leaving Danny holding nothing. The ghost of Patty Melt plummeted towards the ground, but soared back up after a moment. "No! No! No!" she was screaming, her hands and arms engulfed in a giant ball of ectoplasmic fire. "I am Ember McLain. Ember! Ember!" Her hair was starting to float up in the air again, showing a green tinge among the black.

"No, you're not. You are Bertha Green. You had talent and looks but you're always hated yourself. Hated the name of Bertha Green," he shouted back to her. "Bertha Green was somebody but Patty Melt is nothing. Ember McLain is nothing. You've been a failure all your life because you wanted it that way. You had to fail because Bertha Green was such a failure!"

"No!" she screamed. "I'm not a failure. I'm somebody..."

"Bertha!" And with every repeat of her name the ghost of Patty Melt would spasm, shudder, become smaller, the fires surrounding her smaller and less intense.

"Bertha! Bertha!" he shouted, driving her towards the ground. "I'll never forget your name!" he said, making a play on Ember's 'Remember my name,' song.

"No!" the ghost screamed once more, then suddenly exploded in a great gout of fire. Danny threw up a shield and the flames parted around him like a tidal waves splitting on the rocky prominence. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness following the explosion he could see a huddled mess on the ground. It looked vaguely human but arms and legs were bent in ways they shouldn't be, the head and torso looked flattened. Danny felt himself growing nauseous look at this. This must have been what Patty Melt like after her suicide.

Forcing his stomach to behave, Danny knelt down beside the ectoplasmic form. "Ember," he called softly. "It's time for Ember McLain. Please come back, we miss you." He continued to call to Ember, speaking softly, for a long while until the amorphous pile of ectoplasm started to move. For a moment it's lines softened, blurred together, then straightened out. Black clad legs extended, ending in skull-tipped boots. Flaming green hair started waving from the other end. Hands grow out of a short-sleeved cropped T-shirt. A face, rounded and tattooed impressed itself from with the fluid goo.

"Ember, you're back!" Danny shouted.

"Yeah. Whatever. What did you do to me?"

"You have no idea how glad I am to see you, Ember," Danny said, "and I'm sorry I have to do this." He pulled out the Fenton Thermos and hit the intake button. With a brief squawk, Ember was sucked inside.

[]

Jazz Fenton was in her room reading aloud from a case study of a man with displaced aggression. The room was crowded with interested listeners, not one of which was human. She was just turning a page when Danny Phantom walked through the door.

"Hi, guys," he called out and in an instant the room was deserted.

"Danny, what did I say about walking unannounced into my room?" Jazz demanded.

"I knew you were having your PET'EM meeting and I hope everyone is still here, because I want to have a brief chat with all of you."

"He's going to hurt us, I know" a thin voice moaned.

"No, I'm not!" Danny asserted, walking over to plant a Fenton Thermos on Jazz's desk. There was a gasp of dismay from the invisible audience at the sight of it.

"Hey, come on out, guys, we need to talk about who's inside and why."

"He's imprisoned Rollo!" Another invisible voice asserted. "And for what? Doing what a ghost has to do!"

"No, it's not Rollo, though Rollo may not be around for a while. He's working for me."

"Snitch! Turncoat!"

"I heard that, Lord Faultless Roy. So come on out, I know you're here."

A ghost dressed in a 18th century frock coat, knee-length pants and hose stepped out of Jazz's closet. He smoothed down the front of his waistcoat. "That purple dress of yours," he addressed Danny's sister. It's really not your color, and how can you call it a dress when it's front is as backless as the back?"

Jazz reddened. "Stay out of my closet!" she snapped.

"Everybody, Everybody," Danny encouraged. "No fair hidden under the bed. That is so cliched. OK, look, Rollo isn't working _for_ me exactly, but he is working with my approval. I made a promise to Ember here," Danny patted the Thermos. A muffled voice cried, "watch it, Dickhead!"

"What, I'm no longer your 'love muffin'?" Danny snickered.

"Bite me!"

"Anyway. Jazz I'm leaving Ember in your hands. You can let her out whenever you think she's learned her lesson and will behave herself." Sniggering from the ghosts hovering over Jazz's bed earned them a glare from Danny. They hushed.

"Ember's in here," Danny explained once the room had quieted down, "for trying to haunt someone. You know I've told you there's to be no haunting. Period. Well, Ember had cause, and I kind of don't blame her. But she was playing too rough. She was trying to kill this person, and not just discomfort them. I couldn't let that happen. We had a fight and here she is." He was about to tap the Thermos again, then remembered that Ember was inside and stopped himself. "But the guy she was haunting was a real dick so I made her a promise that he would never have a peaceful day in his life. With Rollo's help I'm keeping that promise. But the rest of you," Danny paused to look around the room at all the ghosts there, "no haunting, unless I say so. OK?"

And he walked out of the room.

After a moment of silence Lunch Lady Doris turned to look at Jazz, "what was that all about?" she asked.

"I have no idea," Jazz answered.

[]

A door opened with a great squeaking of hinges, then slammed shut. A heavy tread with the rattle chains proceeded down the hall. Colonel Greenbriar closed the book he was trying to read and shivered. First of all he knew that every door in his house was carefully oiled by his Cuban maintanence man. None of them squeaked - ever! And if he were to rush to the door and look out into the hallway he would find no one there, no chains, nothing. He'd given up trying. It had been that way for a week, Ever since that infernal ghostboy had been there. Squeaking doors, rattling chains and worst of all... Every frigging time he went to the bathroom there was...

"Take Care! I am the Ball Ghost, defender of all things round and bouncy. Heed My warning..." And there would be a pudgy translucent ghost hovering over him at his most vulnerable moment.

"There's nothing round or bouncy in here, so get lost," he had told it the first time it had appeared.

"That with which you set upon is round,"

"It's more of an oval," he argued.

"An oval is a kind of circle!" the ghost retorted, then shouted, somewhat randomly, "Take Care!"

"How long do you intend to do this?" he had asked on the third day.

"You shall never have a peaceful day for the rest of your life..." the ghost had replied.

"What happened to that other ghost, the little kid dressed in black. He seemed like a reasonable sort."

"He has no time for the likes of you...O-O-O-O-O-O!"

"You're the worst ghost, ever." Greenbriar said.

"But I am your ghost and I will stay with you forever!"

"I was afraid of that."

* * *

I was inspired to write this story after posting my previous story, "The Iron Fist of The Order" both here and on FanFiction. I was expecting the usual meager traffic of my other stories. I was astonished by the vast amount of traffic (for me) it generated. Eventually I realized it was because I had tagged the story as co-starring Ember McLain. While Ember had a juicy scene in the first chapter the story wasn't really about her or any one ghost. I felt as if I were sailing under false colors. And I vowed to make up for it by writing a story where Ember was the main co-star. I hope you liked it.


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